The Other Woman
by DebbieB
Summary: Eventually, everyone gets to be the star of their own life story. Calendar Girls femmeslash. Ruth and Celia.


Fic: The Other Woman

It started with The Other Woman.

Or maybe it ended there. It's so hard, when talking about Life and all, to find definitive starting and stopping points for your narrative. I know The Other Woman was involved, along with a nude calendar and lots of unhappiness.

That does seem to be the beginning of all good stories, doesn't it? Unhappiness. Loneliness. Self-doubt. If all the characters were happy, there's be no need for the story, and no call for a happy ending.

So consider the cast of characters—Me, the middle-aged housewife. Eddie, the ne'er-do-well husband with the wandering eye. The Girls, my mates at the W.I., fellow nudies all of us, and bane of the High Gill W.I.

The plot is simple: Annie's husband, the good and kind John, dies of cancer and we are all very devastated. We want to do some good, so we come up—no, iChris/i comes up with a daft plan to raise money by doing a inude/i W.I. calendar, featuring…well, us.

Plot twist—Me, Ruth, the one in the sweater, the one who never seems to be on the same page as the others, refuses to do the bloody thing. i We're not all Chrises in this life. Some of us are Ruths./i Good line. Pretty much sums up where I was at that time, in simple, dialogue format.

But you can't place it all in story form. There are scenes that just don't play to the format, scenes of Me in my dressing room, staring in the mirror, waiting for Eddie to come home. Scenes of Me alone in bed, not crying because tears just don't seem practical anymore. The only scene that seems worth telling was the bath, and no, it didn't get nude there. Me in a robe. Me staring at the water. Me wondering where my life had gone, where the passion had gone.

There was a bottle of wine waiting for Me when I got to the photo shoot I swore I'd not be a part of. I drank clean from the bottle, no half-arsed sipping, a good old-fashioned chug for courage.

Buck naked, I was, with a flower pot, and the Girls were so damned amazed that I'd come.

Ruth.

Me.

The one frightened of my own shadow. The one who cowered in the background while others lived.

I suppose I thought it would put some spark back in my marriage, maybe make Eddie want me again.

I bloody well tied the calendar up in a ribbon with a big bow on it.

I was stupid, you know.

That's when I found out about The Other Woman. Me, the faithful wife, the one who doesn't even lust after George Clooney on iER/i, the one who never checks out the tight bums on the boys lifting boxes at the grocer's. Me, who laughs politely at the racy jokes the Girls tell, without ever really getting the punch lines.

I think that's where the plot, so they say, thickened. No, more like snapped. Cracked open like an oak tree in a lightning storm, zap, bam, the tearing sound of wood and the acrid smell of smoke and burning lumber as the whole damned thing comes crashing down. I'm lucky when I crashed there was no one in the way of my fall. Lucky the Girls were there to yell, "Timber!" and cushion my landing.

Sometimes, in a story like this, the main character (Me) goes through a profound transformation, usually traumatic, usually unpleasant and irreversible. At that point in the narrative, the plot moves to accommodate the new life, the new reality for this otherwise stable character. The prince becomes a slave and learns strength he never knew. The teacher becomes the student, and learns humility and joy. The mother becomes the sleuth, and challenges all of her preconceived notions about who and what she was before the murder took place.

I became The Other Woman.

It's so strange, because I never caused anyone to cheat on their spouse. I never broke up a marriage.

But I became that woman, that lady who wore nice clothing and partied too much and flirted outrageously.

I went to Hollywood right after dumping Eddie in a spectacularly funny scene. I got on a plane (first class) and flew across the ocean. Did the Hollywood thing with the Girls, riding in the limo, head through the sun-roof, sunning by the pool. Christian Dior bubbles in my luxurious bath. Appearing on national television.

There was a frightening rock star with a devil's goatee at the hotel where we stayed, and I seriously toyed with the idea of trying out my groupie skills on him. He seemed dangerous, and perhaps a little unclean, and I was in fierce cougar mode on that trip, ready for action. Of course, I did nothing of the sort. I flirted, but only a bit, and I saved myself the embarrassment of a kind let-down from a perfect stranger by not throwing myself at him.

We went dancing, some of us Girls, the last night we were there. A local dance club, limo brought us, Beautiful People, flashing lights, dance floor dripping with techno-electronic sex. I drank too much, I danced too much, I flirted like a fool. And my Girls brought me home, safely, to the hotel. No regrets the next morning, except for a hangover, thanks to my Girls.

All in all, it was a very liberating experience. I signed autographs. I got applause. I felt gorgeous and sexy and empowered.

At this point in the story, you'd expect a happy ending. But that's not how life is. Remember the lack of clearly delineated starting and stopping points? After our trip to Hollywood, I went home to Knapely. I went home to my empty house and my no-longer-so-empty life. I even went back to Eddie—well, ihe/I came back to me, all apologies and tears and promises of a newer, happier life together.

Yeah, sometimes the characters don't grow that much after all, at least not until the Sequel.

Fast forward a year later, same cast of characters, same location, same soundtrack music. Tai-chi in the morning, singing iJerusalem/i on Thursday nights at the W.I. meetings.

Eddie, unfaithful again. Eddie, out the door. Ruth, struggling with solicitors and settlements and selling the house she worked so hard to decorate. Ruth, leaning on her friends, re-entering the work force, re-entering the dating world.

Other things happen. In this story, I'm not the minor character, I'm the star, and this is my life. Still, one doesn't exist in a vacuum and there must be subplots to keep the audience from getting bored.

My friend Celia—the one with the enormous…ibuns/i. Married all those years to The Major. Suddenly widowed at the beginning of the third act.

It was really sad. It was extremely sad.

I was sadder for her than I'd been for myself, and I was terribly sad for myself.

So there we were, the Divorcee and the Widow, pretending to be strong, bonding over the trials of starting a life all over so far after the first beginnings faded into nostalgia. Bonding over bills and broken pipes and insurance claims and the stupidity of trying to date when all the world wants young women, no matter how good your nude pictures looked on the calendar.

This is the point where we changed genres, I think. Where we began to appeal to a different core audience.

Where suddenly, the lack of husbands didn't seem to hurt so much, and the presence of each other was more than enough to keep us happy and content.

A scene, simple enough to block. Celia's house—bless The Major, he didn't leave her penniless. Bless The Major, he saw to it all the I's were dotted and all the signatures signed and she didn't lose the house and she didn't have to struggle for money. Celia's house. I'm tired. She's bored. I'm complaining about my job, data entry at Knapely General, eight hours a night keying insurance claims into the computer. She's complaining about her house being too much, how she feels like she's clattering around, and may want a smaller place. We're drinking red wine, because that's what we like, it's sexy somehow, it's daring, and neither of us have ever been very sexy or daring in our lives…well, except for that whole nude calendar thing.

At this point in the story, the music would change. The lighting would change, and the audience would be given several subliminal hints that ieverything/I is about to change for these two characters.

Because wine and whining bring women together, and loneliness does amazing things to the inhibitions one wears throughout life.

I'd like to think this story wasn't cliché, that it wasn't expected and predictable. I certainly didn't expect it. I know Celia didn't.

I could end it there, a happy (if unconventional) ending, two lonely middle-age ladies finding comfort in each other's arms, rediscovering passion long after they'd thought all that made them women had died and deserted and defied them.

I could end it there, but that's not how life goes.

Celia and I got together, partly because we were happier that way, and partly because we were tired of living half a life each. Granted, together it made one life, but the mathematics aren't really what's important.

What's important was that this wasn't the end of the story. It was just the beginning. So many discoveries to make. So many things to learn, and unlearn, about what love was, about what life was, and about what made us women. Friends we thought would be furious greeted our relationship with open arms. Friends we'd thought so liberal, so open-minded, not so much.

An odd little story, finding out that the Other Woman wasn't a painted tart sleeping with your ex-husband. Finding out that the Other Woman lived under your skin, scratching and clawing to get out, peeling off her clothes for a good cause, drinking too much on a Los Angeles dance floor, pulling her sweater tighter when it all became too cold and painful. The Other Woman wasn't the end of my life, or the beginning, really. She was there all the time, watching through my eyes, waiting for the time when it would be safe to come out.

It's safe now. Celia is there, and the Girls are there, the W.I. is there, and we're all still moving along our quirky little paths towards understanding.

I doubt you can expect a sequel anytime soon. This story is still playing itself out. I don't think I'll be getting bored with it any time soon.

And now comes the best part of all--The End. Closing credits. Please press stop, go back to the beginning, and do the whole thing again with the sound off. It's fun that way.


End file.
